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Movement in North Carolina and Pennsylvania while talks in Connecticut remain sporadic

Dysfunction in New York and California's capitols grabbed most of the headlines this summer, but it might be Connecticut's budget impasse that outlasts all other states.

Governor Rell and legislative leaders are done with budget negotiations for the week. They negotiated for just 90 minutes on Tuesday, after trading new budget proposals and political jabs last week.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, the Democratically-controlled legislature has struck a deal. Governor Beverly Perdue, a Democrat, says she doesn't like everything in it, but she says she'll sign it.

Todd Haggerty is a research analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"North Carolina, obviously reached an agreement in the legislature and the governor intending, that it might be signed, they're a little further ahead."

And in Pennsylvania, the governor signed a partial budget this week so state workers could keep getting paid.

There, like in Connecticut, Hagerty says, it's come down to philosophical differences between Democratic Governor Ed Rendell and the Republican-controlled state Senate.

"In Pennsylvania, it's still a question of do you raise taxes or do you make further cuts?"

That's also the debate here. Democratic lawmakers want to close the state's massive deficit with a 1.8 billion dollar tax package, that mostly relies on higher income taxes for couples making over half a million dollars. Governor Rell's proposal makes deeper cuts to state programs and increases taxes by by just 391 million dollars.

Budget analysts from the governor's office and the legislature will continue to meet this week, but negotiations will not resume until Monday.